Biography

Beverly Pepper

Biography from the Archives of askART

Known for her welded steel sculptures in hollow, geometric shapes, she utilizes box-like forms and paints inner surfaces in a single, bright color.

She was born in New York and educated at Pratt Institute and the Art Students League. She later studied in Paris with Fernand Leger and Andre Lhote, and from 1951 lived in Rome. Until 1960, she did painting and then started to carve in wood, worked in clay and bronze, and the following year began welding, which was encouraged by renowned sculptor David Smith.Three of her sculptures were included in the "Scultura nella Citta" exhibition in Spoleto in 1962, and she first used box-like shapes in 1964 in a monument to John F. Kennedy at the Weizmann Institute in Israel.

Biography from Auctionata, Inc.

Beverly Pepper (b.1922) is an influential outdoor sculptor and land
artist working in wood, polished stainless, and Cor-ten steel. In
parallel with artists such as Richard Serra, Pepper furthered the
exploitation of industrial manufacturing techniques by contemporary
artists from her studio in Umbria, Italy. In 1991 she was the subject of
a solo exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in 2003 she
was awarded the Alexander Calder Prize for Sculpture.

Biography from Leslie Sacks Fine Art

Beverly Pepper was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1922. She studied advertising design, industrial design and photography at the Pratt Institute, New York. Pepper also attended classes in painting and art theory at the Art Students League, New York and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, Paris.

In the 1960s, Pepper turned from painting to sculpture and her work began receiving serious international attention. She began carving in wood, using power tools instead of a hand chisel, before moving into the medium of steel. In the 1970s, Pepper started experimenting with what she called "earthbound sculptures," creating site-specific pieces that were physically encompassed by the earth. The artist has eventually come to be known for her large-scale, powerful land art pieces.

Beverly Pepper's work can be found in major international museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Wshington, D.C.; the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.; Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Centre George Pompidou, Museu d'Art Contemporari de Barcelona, Barcelona; and the Palazzo degli Uffizi, Florence.

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